I, Death Machine
by AnonyMiss J
Summary: Who is Jack Dante? I don't really know, but I'm going to try to find out. Anyone else who happens to be curious, do feel free to give this a read.
1. Default Chapter

I, Death Machine  
  
Even the manner in which Jack Dante had come into the world 32 years ago was different than the births of most people. His mother would have made an excellent parent had she not all but lost her good sense due to an unfortunate heroin addiction and a case of mild schizophrenia. The woman had left her only child in a newspaper-lined cardboard box in her meager apartment ten minutes after she had given him birth. If it hadn't been for his piteous squalling, the landlord wouldn't have entered the abandoned room for at least another week. It would have been too late for Jack by then.  
  
In less than an hour after his rescue, the newborn baby was delivered to the local hospital (a rather rundown establishment which was a sorry excuse for a place of healing). It was discovered by his doctors that the child, like its mother, was addicted to heroin, and the next month of his already unfortunate life was spent in a glass box with tubes stuck in various places of his body.  
  
The boy survived this tenuous time, but he was left scarred by his natal circumstances; he would forever be slight, sickly and weak in body.  
  
When six months had passed, during which his system had become stabilized, the mysterious child with no identity was shipped off to an orphanage which was located two towns over. He would be placed in the developing infant ward, where his basic needs would be taken care of. His emotional development was of no concern to the staff who were responsible for him; they did what they were paid for and nothing more.  
  
When the time came for the custodial rights of the child to be signed over to the orphanage, a problem presented itself which had never before been encountered by them: this child had come to them with no records, no past, as if he had literally fallen from the sky. He had no name that they could sign for him on the release forms.  
  
Despite this unusual circumstance, however, the dilemma would be easily solved; a name simply had to be created for this infant right then. The proprietor, who legally had to be present for the signing over of the child to his institution, was accompanied by his teenaged daughter, an intelligent girl who happened to be quite well-versed in literature. She had been asked by her father if she would like to supply a name for the frail, homely newborn.  
  
The girl thought for a moment before deciding on a combination of the first and last names of her two most favorite authors:  
  
Jack Dante.  
  
So it was recorded in his file, and so the child would be known from that day on. 


	2. A Total Mystery

Chapter Two: A Total Mystery  
  
Today was Jack's birthday (or the day that had been determined as the probable anniversary of his birth), his eighth. Though, aside from the mandatory cheap gift he had received from the staff and students collectively, this day was unlike any other in his droning, lonely life.  
  
He had already lived in four different orphanages by this time, this being his fourth 'home'. He had been 'removed' from each of those institutions because he had been deemed too dangerous to control. The 'final attack' always terrified them.  
  
~ They were beginning to become a cycle, the stages of these 'attacks'. He was gradually coming to accept them.  
  
First he would concentrate on getting used to a new place, and everything would be fine; he was still a strange and often silent child, but this wasn't too unusual. Once he became accustomed to his new way of life, however, he would slowly become anxious, ill-at-ease. His left eye would start to water continuously, a slow trickle down his cheek. He would become jumpy during his classes, unable to sit still.  
  
His fascination with weapons (an eccentricity he'd possessed for as long as he could remember, coming about when he'd first been able to hold things in his hands) would eventually take over his mind, and all of his energy would be devoted to securing potentially harmful objects and then fashioning them into a more deadly implement of destruction.  
  
The final stage in his vicious cycle was when he would use these crudely made weapons to harm either himself or, far worse to the orphanage personnel, other people.  
  
This was when he would be forcibly taken, literally kicking, screaming and flailing, from his home, placed in solitary confinement in a psychiatric hospital and pumped full of mind-numbing drugs for days until his mania ceased.  
  
And when all of the doctors and nurses thought he was calm and serene enough (oh, but he had been 'cured' so many times!) to once again be trusted to live amongst humanity, he was sent back to the orphanage. But not the same one as before; people never wanted to see him again after the 'final attack' occurred.  
  
He never knew how long he would be kept at a place, and so lived every day of his life as if he might not wake up in the same bed on the next one. ~  
  
His class had been in recess for fifteen minutes now, and he had spent all of them sitting alone under the shade of his favorite tree, one of the few that dotted the dry expanse of land which surrounded the orphanage. He was always alone on the playground, because no one wanted to be near him.  
  
Despite the debilitating circumstances of his birth, he had surprised his caregivers and instructors by possessing an uncannily astute mind, but only in certain areas of study. Though he spoke not a word during his classes and rarely completed any homework, his submitted testing proved that he was what could be called a genius in the areas of mathematics and technological science. These subjects seemed to come naturally to him, and the child would spend hours before a computer (all of the orphanages had at least one, as Dante had been born during the beginning of the technological age, but they were usually older models), tinkering away at mathematical problems and creating mechanical designs that none save himself could understand.  
  
His reading and writing skills were, unfortunately, rather lacking; whether they could have been improved by closer study was never to be found out, as he chose not to develop any interest in the subjects. Subsequently, the only things he could spell correctly aside from his name were small words (such as 'hard' or 'core'), and when he was forced to read aloud it sounded as if he were attempting to speak in another language.  
  
The boy developed a love of drawing as well, if not a great talent for it, and filled the pages of many notebooks with his crude sketches over the years. This artistic streak did nothing to endear him to his peers, however, for the things he drew were foreign and frightening to them. Jack Dante's preoccupation with weaponry crossed over into everything he did, and his drawings were populated with knives, guns, axes, or anything that could possibly be used to harm another being.  
  
The majority of his pictures starred various designs of a creature who possessed the basic shape and form of a human, but was crafted completely out of knives and metal. He had dreamt both in his waking and sleeping hours of this thing for years, and strove to capture it perfectly on paper.  
  
Its construction consumed him, compelled him and controlled him. And no one else could understand this drive. Even he himself did not yet know the purpose of this frantic need to create such a being, but he would soon find out.  
  
In time, everything in Jack's life would click into place. But for the entirety of his early life, the very purpose of his existence was a mystery to all of those around him.  
  
Jack Dante had grown from a pale, skinny infant into a pale, skinny boy. He was all points and angles, with bones jutting through the skin of his entire body and sharp facial features. As his doctors had predicted, he was small, shorter than the other boys his age, and even some that were younger than him. He preferred black clothing, and picked through the boxes of mostly used garments which were donated to the orphanage for this color, regardless of size or style. Thus, the clothes he wore were almost always too large for him, and they hung from his bony frame like shadows clinging to a corpse.  
  
He had plain brown hair (it was neither light or dark, nor did it have any highlights in it whatsoever) that hung greasily around his face and over his eyes; he liked to hide behind it. He refused to have it cut, and would cause one of his scenes whenever one of the staff attempted to force him to do so. They had long since given up on him, and his hair was now gently brushing the tops of his shoulders.  
  
His eyes appeared to have been frozen during a fearful and traumatic moment; though somewhat narrow, they were always opened wide, the pupils permanently dilated, and they were colored such a light blue shade that they looked like transparent spheres of cloudy morning sky. They were haunted eyes, and they frightened the other children, whose desolate situation was not mirrored in their own.  
  
All in all, Jack Dante looked like a lost child, a wild thing. There was a savagery that lay buried in his eyes, and all who recognized it feared the time that it would be unleashed.  
  
For, to know this child, that moment was inevitable. And no one wanted to be there when it happened.  
  
Not even Jack. 


	3. No Pity, No Mercy, No Fear

Chapter Three: No Pity, No Mercy, No Fear  
  
As Jack Dante grew older, he began to learn more about the ways of the world, and just how he fit into it. He learned that people naturally did not like him, and the only way for him to befriend or even to get close to others would be if he made a relationship worth their while.   
  
For this reason, he was easy to take advantage of, and the few 'friends' he was able to secure took him for all he was worth. Of course, the only thing he possessed that was of any material value in society was his body, so that was what they took, in any way he was willing to give it.   
  
He soon found that he did not like the way of the world very much.  
  
Jack made many 'friends' during his youth and into his young adulthood, but he could only remember those who had made the most impact on him (or, as he grew older, any impact at all). The first was a bully called Toby Crowell, a strapping yet dim-witted boy who had been Jack's bunkmate for several months back when he was nine years old (Toby had been twelve; his dull mind and dislike for learning frequently prevented academic advancement).   
  
One night, Toby had decided that Jack's obsessive drawing---which always came before his love of conversing with other people, namely, Toby---and self-imposed solitude were too abnormal for him to be forced to abide, so the older boy advanced upon the younger with the intention of beating him to a pulp.   
  
However, one look into Jack's searing blue eyes (Toby's first, for the quiet child almost never looked anyone in the eye) and at his longish hair and slim body caused the pre-adolescent to discard the intent to physically abuse the younger boy in favor of the newly found and far greater desire to sexually assault him.   
  
Fortunately for young Toby, Jack was a compliant victim, and was so in awe of the attention being bestowed upon him by another living being that was not of his mind's making, that he had been willing to do anything that was asked of him as long it did not waver. While the feeling of being choked by Toby's developing penis was not altogether a pleasant experience, Jack felt that the expressions of euphoria on the older boy's face and the feeling of his large hands twisted into his hair or stroking his back more than made up for that discomfort.   
  
This 'friendship' with Toby Crowell only lasted for a short time, for the troublesome boy was carted off to another orphanage less than half a year after having made the one in which Jack was residing his home. The two boys had been found out, as it were, by a member of the orphanage staff who was adamant that Toby be reassigned to another institution so that Jack would be safe from his abusive overtures.   
  
How odd it was that this very same man was to become Jack's second 'friend' shortly after rescuing him from Toby. Though his sadness at Toby's abrupt departure from his life had been neatly assuaged by the 'friendship' of his 'rescuer', he became quite distraught when the man took the one thing from his body that Toby hadn't known how to.   
  
Another one of his attacks followed the unfortunate incident, and Jack was once again placed in a psychiatric institution. That stay in the psych ward was his longest ever. During the first few weeks of his confinement, his agitation and mania could not be calmed down by any drug or procedure; nor, conversely, could the depressive stupor which eventually claimed his mind for the latter weeks, be relieved by any of the hospital staff.   
  
To this day, he has no memory of that last stay in the psych ward, nor does he remember the name of the 'rescuer' who had ultimately sent him there.  
  
After two months and several days at the hospital, young Jack Dante eventually achieved the proper level of sanity to be allowed to leave it, and was once again relocated to another orphanage. To the surprise of many, Jack remained in this same institution until he reached the age of majority. He would not have another psychotic episode until he reached adulthood.  
  
The personnel of this new orphanage were not aware that the Jack Dante they knew was only a semblance of his former self. In fact, this Jack Dante was everything the former had not been: talkative, sarcastic, crude and unusually libidinous. He made many new 'friends' in this orphanage, both students and staff alike, and all of these brief conquests were initiated by him.   
  
What people found most attractive about Jack was the desperate vulnerability that fairly emanated from his being and colored his personality, his need to be desired. They did not realize that it was love he craved, but since he didn't even recognize this need within himself, there was no way that he could search for it.   
  
So, instead, the people he found to fulfill his baser needs were as sexually depraved as he had grown to be, and just as needy for someone to hold power over. These people were like physically stronger and mentally inferior mirrors of himself, and his consummations with them were more like battles for control than expressions of passion.  
  
Along with his emerging sexuality, Jack had discovered the wonders of television (he had been oblivious of its existence in his childhood), most specifically children's sci-fi or fantasy cartoons, and spent many hours sprawled out on one of the couches in the orphanage's lounge watching them. He told anyone who asked him about this juvenile fixation that he watched so many cartoons so he could 'catch up with his runaway childhood'.   
  
Any time he did not spend in front of the television was spent working tirelessly before a computer screen, painstakingly refining and advancing his robotic designs. The image of the indestructible man-machine still danced tantalizingly behind his eyes; it was the only god he had ever known and he worshipped it faithfully.   
  
He did not draw during this time, and would not for years to come. Every time he picked up a pad of paper, he was reminded of his awakening to human nature, and the foul consequences it had wreaked upon his psyche.  
  
Jack Dante now knew the ways of the world, and his eyes and demeanor came to reflect this knowledge, as well as the formidable sense of cunning he developed. Within himself, a great and intense anger was slowly being shaped and nourished, but he would never come to understand it.   
  
For, while his intelligence grew stronger as his body grew larger, his emotional growth had been stunted shortly after he had left the hospital for the last time. If those who had taken care of him had actually cared for him at all, they might have been able to stop the murderous anger that he would become renowned for from taking root in his brain before it exploded in the form of a catastrophe that would change Jack Dante's life forever 


End file.
